Iftar Food Festival at Zakaria Street

People of Kolkata are born foody. They always search for new kind of delicacies. Not only Kolkatanas, all the Bengalis “live to eat”. Welcoming new dishes are their nature and they cross the religious forbids just for food.

It is quite obvious that a festival like Eid or more specifically Iftar will bring “foodgasmic spring”for this city. Not only Muslims, even the Hindus keep waiting for the Ramdam month just for Halim – the most popular Iftar special dish.

I love Iftar food plaza for Haleem. Haleem can only be available during the month of Ramzan and is the main attraction of this food plaza. The heavenly dish contains different pulses, minced meat and lentils. Haleem is available through out the food plaza.

Not only Haleem, Kolkata becomes a food hub in this one month just like the biggest festival of the city – Durga Puja. But the best Iftar food park is undoubtedly Zakaria Street – “The Kebab Gali of Kolkata”.

Zakaria Street is famous for its own delicacy – Suta Kabab (Suti Kabab or Sutli Kabab). Adam’s Kabab Shop is the pioneer of Suta Kabab. Though this shop is not inside the Zakaria Street, but in the next lane – Phears Lane. But Adam’s recipe has been copied by the street food joints of Zakaria Street. Suta Kabab is available there throughout the year.

Suta means thread. Small pieces of Beef is first marinated with secret herbs and spices and then put around the skewer. The cotton thread is then rolled over the meat. The skewer is then then placed in barbecue pit and grilled until the colour of meat turns to brown. The thread is removed before serving with onion, and lemon.

During Ramzan month, Suta Kabab is available almost all the shops in the temporarily created “Food plaza”. When Suta Kabab is getting melted inside your mouth your friend seems to be busy in fried fish of Murshidabad. A family from Murshidabad come here every year with the fresh fried fish.

“Every morning trucks filled by fish comes from Murshidabad”, said by the owner of the stall after I asked the reason behind tasty dishes. “We cut them into fillets, marinate and then fry in a lot.” They follow a sequence. In every ten minutes they start frying a lot of different fish.

Tanduri Chicken, Shikh Kababs are very common items in any food plaza across the India, obviously you can try this one also.

Chop (more or less similar to pakora) is the most popular street food of West Bengal. Most of the Bengalis evening comes with “Muri” (puffed rice) and Chop. It is nothing but besan coated boiled vegetables dip fried in oil. However, instead of vegetables fish and meat is widely used. Like every fair of Bengal, obviously stalls for chops are also available here. This is one of the reason behind my personal likeness of this temporary food plaza. Iftar Market mixes the food across the Bengal.

There is nothing to say about the main course. After crawling to the street food corners if your stomach has even a small portion of empty space, you can think about main course. And it is obviously by Biriyani.

You might go to Amenia or Royal but they are restaurants and will remain open through out the year. Rather try the Biriyani in this food plaza. The ultimate taste of Biriyani is found here.For vegetarians, there are not much options except sandwiches and deserts. Different type of veg sandwiches are available in a stall.

Semai or Simui is the ‘must have’ in desert. You can see some small hills of uncooked simui in many shops however cooked simui are also sold there.